Treatments of Epilepsy by Targeting Irregular Nerve Cell Activity

Seizures are characterized by uncontrollable brain activity and can manifest in various physiological manners – the most commonly known symptoms involve convulsions and loss of consciousness. Epilepsy is the term used to describe an illness that results in a pattern of seizures that disturbs a person’s life due to this irregular nerve cell activity. According to John S. Duncan in his research paper called, Adult epilepsy, “Epilepsy is a family of neurologic disorders with an estimated frequency between 4 and 10 per 1,000 individuals per year, and, if not treated, is associated with progressively impaired cognition and function, brain damage, and other neurologic deficits” (Duncan et al., 2006). The idea that inhibiting or preventing this uncontrollable electrical activity in the brain could potentially treat or even cure epilepsy is not a new one, as scientists have been studying ways to efficiently treat this disease for years, however, novel and more relevant methods are being introduced into the scientific community. It is just a matter of time before treatments targeting the irregular brain activity begin to emerge and are more frequently used to treat epilepsy.  

Dr. Jordan Skach et al. explore the reduction of undesirable brain activity to possibly identify methods of treatment for neurological dysfunctions caused by this excessive nerve activity in their study titled, Axonal blockage with microscopic magnetic stimulation. They conducted their experiments by blocking action potential propagation in unmyelinated axons of the Aplysia californica mollusk using submillimeter magnetic coils coated with a biocompatible material. Their results suggest that, “By delivering high frequency pulses, the miniature coil can completely suppress axonal conductance in the unmyelinated axons. Axonal blockage was observed in a large number of axons, a few axons, or in a single axon, that is actively conducting action potentials” (Skach et al., 2020). This paper demonstrates that it is indeed possible to reduce or eliminate electrical brain activity in a desired region using miniature coils, and with this new knowledge and further research, it could very well be possible to reduce the frequency of seizures in an epileptic patient. 

To expand on the possibility of epilepsy treatment by targeting irregular nerve cell activity, Andreas T. Sørensen et al. experiment with various treatments for partial/focal epilepsy by reducing seizure susceptibility in mice. One method that they used with promising results was the transplantation of GABA releasing cells. By adding GABA synthesizing neurons into established neural circuits, inhibitory effects on seizures were seen. “After transplantation into the mouse hippocampus, these cells decrease the seizure susceptibility and reduce the number of spontaneous seizures in a genetic mouse model of chronic epilepsy” (Sørensen et al., 2012). Whether irregular nerve cell activity is reduced by miniature coils or GABA releasing cells, both papers by Skach and Sørensen show relevant and promising results that must be taken into consideration when treating future cases of epilepsy. Pharmaceutical drugs can often be expensive and have terrible side effects, but if epilepsy can potentially be cured by a one-time treatment without the negative side effects, these papers are definitely a step in the right direction. 

 

References

 

Duncan JS, Sander JW, Sisodiya SM, Walker MC. (2006) Adult epilepsy. Lancet367:1087–1100.

 

Skach, J., Conway, C., Barrett, L. et al. Axonal blockage with microscopic magnetic stimulation. Sci Rep 10, 18030 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-74891-3

 

Sørensen, A., Kokaia, M. (2012) Novel approaches to epilepsy treatment. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1111/epi.12000